Saturday, October 09, 2004

Brow-Beaten

I’m a fraud. I am not the man I appear to be. Although I am not a closeted gay man, a covert CIA agent or a member of a secret midget fetish society, I do feel an odd sense of fraternity with people like these because I, too, harbor a deep, painful secret:

I shave my eyebrows.

There. I’ve said it.

Divulging this now is a matter of necessity, not choice. I feel it’s wise to let the world know why I walk into the video rental store with blood oozing from the top of my face and why the area just north of my nose is incessantly inflamed and pocked with stubble. As the condition of my sub-brow complexion deteriorates, I see more and more supermarket cashiers doing double-takes at my face. They look, then look away, then snap their gaze back at me again, leaning in and squinting at my brow as if they think they see a tiny pair of breasts on my forehead.

Here’s the truth: When I was in my early 20s I noticed stubble between my eyebrows. Nothing too furry, but definitely noticeable to me. And for an anxiety-ridden young man who wanted desperately to gain carnal knowledge beyond that which could be found on pay-per-view, the very possibility that this might ultimately bloom into follicular Fallujah was reason enough to drag a razor across it. I thought it would be a one-time occurrence, but the stubble reappeared almost daily, and creating a river of baldness between my brows became part of my morning routine. Without this critical grooming step, I would have looked like a native of Chernobyl by lunchtime.

All was well for almost 15 years. I went to college. I married Hot Wife. We had two kids. I was, for all intents and purposes, a normally browed man. But the situation has become quite dire in the past year. The stubble has crept down my brow and onto the bridge of my nose. And as if looking like a goddamn cat isn’t misery enough, I have also been stricken with a raging case of razor burn, a malady that combines the most gruesome and insidious elements of an allergic bee sting reaction and “morning dick” and burrows itself smack dab into the middle of my face. The way it has caused my forehead to jut out, I’ll easily pass for Frankenstein at the company Halloween party this year, sans costume. “Oh my gosh, Catherine, look! It’s so lifelike.”

And it continues. Each morning I lather my cheeks, chin and lip with shaving cream and finish with a little dollop between my eyebrows. When everything else is baby’s bottom smooth, I put the razor in the middle of my forehead and drag it straight down until I reach the bridge of my nose. About once a week, I open up a gusher. Trust me: you haven’t lived until you’ve hobbled into a packed Starbucks with a wad of toilet paper sealing a wound between your eyes. “What are you people staring at? I…am not…an animaaaaaaaal!”

I have entertained the idea of having my unibrow waxed, but I can’t let go of the vision of the attendant snickering through the process and then mistakenly ripping my whole face off when she yanks the wax forward. I’m not trying to be a wimp, but I’m using my face right now and I just can’t afford to have it removed. So I’ll live with my deformity for now.

in agreement with the above noters... go somewhere nice... get a good wax job and then a good (and I mean a GOOD pair of tweezers. crappy tweezers=pain. GOOD tweezers=...less pain. :) You may need to get a couple of wax jobs but then you should be able to keep it up nicely with a little bit of tweezing now & again. And I swear they won't snicker. And they won't rip your face off. :)

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Here are actual questions you asked the presidential candidates when they appeared on your show. To Bush: 'Were y'all spankers?" To Kerry: "Did you ever spank the girls?" To Bush: "Did you spank them?" To Kerry: "What did she do to get spanked?" Hey, Dr. Phil, keep it in your pleated pants. [GQ Magazine, Dec. 2004, pg. 372]